Tuesday, October 28, 2014

Fixing Launch Problems In Outlook

Outlook’s Cannot Start error is surely something you’ve already seen. This is a common problem, faced by many users. What happens is that the email client application doesn’t launch when you open the shortcut to it. Usually, you have the Invalid XML error too, which is one of the causes for this. You generally call a technical support service, when you encounter something like this.

Running the inbuilt Office Diagnostics tool doesn’t suffice to get rid of the problem for you, and neither would you find any errors in this way. The best way to handle the situation involves relaunching the program, this time using the /resetnavpane switch. Alternately, you could try deleting the <profile_name>.xml file and then, running Outlook.

The latter will cause Outlook to create a new XML file, for which it will also set up a default navigation pane folder structure. Any customization you previously had on the navigation pane would be lost, of course, including the favorited folder items. You may face the same problem in XP, if Outlook is being run in the compatibility mode. Keep in mind that this setting is totally unnecessary in any version of Windows, you run the email client in.Using the /resetnavpane switch

Close the program.

Go to the Start Search if you’re on Vista or Windows 7, and type in Run. Hit the Windows key + R combo, and paste the following in the field shown there: outlook.exe /resetnavpane.

Hit the Enter key.

Removing the Navigation pane configuration file

You might face problems while using the switch, in which case you can find and delete the navigation settings, or the XML file containing it. Go to the Run command in the Start menu, and paste the following in the text field: %appdata%\Microsoft\Outlook

Hit Enter and you’ll have an explorer window pop open, showing the folder, where the configuration files for Outlook are saved. Find the file, which has the configuration settings for your profile, and delete it.

For fixing other such problems in Outlook, try launching it in safe mode, which means that the customizations and add-ins will be disabled. You can do this by holding down the Ctrl key, when you click on the Start Menu shortcut. Alternately, you can type outlook.exe /safe into the Run command box.

If the above procedures can’t fix the problem for you, call Omni Tech Support for assistive troubleshooting. You will get the best quality services at Omni Tech Support, and at the most economical price.